


The Spring

by Venturous



Series: There's Still Time [5]
Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Catharsis, Gen, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-24
Updated: 2013-10-24
Packaged: 2017-12-30 08:09:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1016194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Venturous/pseuds/Venturous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>NOTE: this fic is now included in the complete <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/4566828">There's Still Time</a></p><p>Jesse and Walter take a hike.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Spring

**Author's Note:**

> unbeta'd  
> I'm more than willing to take corrections, concrit. and, I could really use a Spanish language consult. Pretty-please?

In time he could make it around the house several times. Rosa had equipped him with scratch so he could satisfy the chickens, although sometimes they chased him for more. She showed him where to look for eggs: near a fencepost, beside a big rock, in a tuft of grass. He enjoyed the discovery, and the heft of the warm egg in his hand. Something real, solid. Life, for him to eat, or that might grow into a fine bird.

One afternoon Jesse returned early. It was nicely cool weather, maybe a touch of fall in the air, and Walt was feeling good. He has already helped Rosa hang the wash and scrub the floor, then rested on the veranda.

“Hey, you’re home early.”

“Yeah, got some time on my hands. Thought I’d take care of some shit.”

Taciturn. The kid was becoming a real cowboy, speaking in grunts and nods. Sometimes he reminded Walter of Mike. Walt sighed and looked away, out at the horizon of scrub sage.

Rosa brought lunch and they occupied themselves with food. She was a goddess in the kitchen. Walt decided, slurping up the best green chile posole he’d ever eaten.

When they were through she waved at Walt, shaking her head. He was to stay with Pinkman, not help in the kitchen. Walter wanted to roll his eyes. He was getting well enough to be bored, and Jesse’s conversation skills were at an all time low.

“Let’s go for a walk. You up to it?”

Surprised Walt nodded and got up, grabbing his walking stick and hat. He missed his old black hat, but this straw job was lighter and cooler in the mid day sun.

They headed out the driveway and soon veered off onto a footpath, meandering amid the sage and cactus toward nothing in particular. Every now and then Jesse would glance over his shoulder to see if Walt was keeping up, and he’d nod, walking at an almost normal pace now.  It felt good to be moving with purpose, not just aimless laps around the house. But where were they going?

After a while, a clump of boulders grew larger, and rocky outcroppings began to appear. There really was something to that mirage business, he thought. The desert seemed like an endless featureless plain, the repetition of forms numbing the mind, but then things would abruptly appear out of nowhere.

They entered a passage between two large rocks, and Walter began to feel a sense of unease. Jesse was speeding up, or he was flagging. The latter is more likely, he thought. I just need a rest. The trail was intriguing now, bending around rocks taller than they were, finally becoming a small canyon, twisting lower as the stones rose tall above them.

Cool air filled the shaded spaces and the light changed from blazing bright to a soft glow, reflected from golden rock.

The way opened up and he saw Pinkman kneeling at what must be a spring, a trickle of cool water flowing off the rocks into a tiny pool. Jesse brought his cupped hands to his mouth, drinking deeply, then splashed his face with water, shaking his wet fringe.

“Thirsty?” He stood aside, motioning for Walt to approach.

The spring was lined with moss, and tiny plants so green they seemed lit from within. After the bleached light of the desert hike, the green was oily, rich and radiant. Walter knelt stiffly, feeling the sting of small stones on his knees. He plunged his hands into the water, surprised by how icy it was, and drank deeply. Nothing had ever tasted so delicious.

A wave of exhaustion poured over him and he stepped back, sitting heavily on a boulder. He took in the tired feeling in his limbs, the warm stone, the coolness in his throat. The sound of his breath. So alive.

It was eerily quiet in the enclosed space. Walt’s breath echoed in his ears, seemed too loud in the stillness of the grotto. He looked up from the mossy trickle and it’s flashing rainbow light and saw Pinkman standing before him, stock-still and silent. He was looking at Walt.

Something in his gaze registered with Walter. He looked up at him openly and got a strange chill. There was a sternness in the young man’s face he’d never before seen.  Although he felt uneasy, Walter didn’t break the gaze.

In time Jesse spoke:

“Are you OK?”

Walt nodded. “Yes.” He waited.

Jesse looked away; he turned toward the spring, then spun back.

“Good. Because I have some things to say to you.

“I should have let you die, old man.”

His voice lowered.

“I should kill you now.”

Walt was shaking, but he couldn’t look away from Jesse’s downcast face. He didn’t hear the voice of a murderous anger, but a quiet conviction. He’d wait and see where this was going.

He didn’t have to wait long. Jesse stood up, scowling, and slapped him with a wide swinging hand, so hard that his glasses flew off and he crashed backwards, half off the boulder, slumped against the rock wall, gasping.

Blood trickled from his lip where he’d bitten it. He looked up at Pinkman, waiting for another blow.

Jesse had stalked away a few paces, growling.

“God DAMN it, you rotten son of a bitch, you made me a murderer. First you blackmail me, told me how you NEEDED me to get the business started, but then do nothing but tell me I’m a worthless piece of shit, over and over again.

“Did it ever cross your mind what that does to a person? Do you do that to your kid? No wonder he won’t have anything to do with you!”

Walter gasped involuntarily at the mention of Walt Jr. and opened his mouth to protest – but as he began to reconsider the wisdom of saying anything, Pinkman cut him off.

“Shut up. SHUT UP, its MY turn!”

Jesse surged at him, grabbing his collar and slamming him back against the rock, spitting with rage into his face.

“You sick bastard. Why did you have to have me if you were going to run me down? Why did you even save my miserable life? Just to torture me?”

He let go of Walt with a shove and paced around, raking a hand through his stringy hair.

“Well you succeeded in that, old man. There’s Combo, dead. Tomas, dead.  Mike, dead. Andrea, dead. Jane…”

His voice broke, just for a moment, then he snarled:

“And Gale, Jesus. Gale! Of all the stupid bitches that didn’t deserve killing, you had to make me murder that harmless faggot. I will never, ever be able to get his pleading face out of my head.”

He was almost screaming, but then shifted to a low and ominous tone: 

 “But poisoning Brock. That was… I have no words. Fucking unbelievable. Which is why you almost got away with it.”

 “Don’t you know I had plenty of my own reasons for killing Gus? Did you have to threaten something more precious than my own LIFE? I was totally willing to see Fring roast in hell after what he did…” he trailed off, voice shaking.

Walt waited, panting, sucking his swollen lip, his heart pounding like a rabbit. Jesse paced up the gulley a few long strides then returned, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.

“You miserable son of a bitch, WHY? Did you hate me so much? Why did you yank my chain, over and over and over? WHY??”

Walt looked up into Jesse’s ravaged face. He could see the scars now: many small ones, a big gash across on cheekbone, his crooked nose. He couldn’t read the intense glare or tell if Jesse was daring him to speak or beseeching him for an answer.

“Jesse, I…”

Blue eyes pinned him like a bug.

“I.. I don’t know the words. I’m … I hate that I… I…”

Walter stuttered in frustration.

“What’s the matter? Where’s your gift for gab now, Heisenberg.” Jesse sneered.  “Huh? You, who could convince anyone of anything, make it sound like not just a good idea, but necessary, unquestionably important. Cat got your tongue?”

Walter looked up into Jesse’s tearstained face. He truly had lost his clever words. His emotions were every bit as turbulent as his former protege.

“You have every right to kill me, Jesse.” He sighed heavily. “Frankly, I don’t understand why you saved me.”

“Yeah, well. That’s what we DO, isn’t it? Save each other.”

Jesse stood half turned away, his head tilted, lank hair hiding his face.

“And maybe I’m just sick to death of killing.

“But I might reconsider, considering how you hired those goons to kill me. ‘Painlessly, like family’ wasn’t it?”

He spun around and threw his arms up to the heavens. Then he stepped closer, bent low and stared Walter in the eye. He spoke in a seething whisper:

“Do you know what they did to me, Walter White?” He spat the name. “Do you have any idea?”

Walter was frozen, trying not to tremble. He stared at Pinkman’s boots.

“No? Would you like me to tell you? Of course not, but I will. I want you to know.

“That sick fuck Todd beat me with a hose filled with chain. He broke my nose, my ribs. He let his buddies kick me, just for fun. I peed blood for weeks. I didn’t have much to give them, just the video confession that your brother-in-law squeezed out of me. I sure hope that nice Mrs. Schrader wasn’t home when they went to get it.“

Walt hung his head, miserably.

“Then they threw me in a pit, pissed on me and left me to rot for… a while. After that they chained me up in the lab and make me cook for them. By threatening Andrea and Brock, whom you introduced them to, if you recall.

“When the workday was done, they passed me around for sport.”

Walt looked up, shocked

“That’s right, you miserable fuck, they raped me, every last one of them as far as I could tell. After a while they got sick of me screaming, so they poured liquor down my throat before stuffing a sock in my mouth. So they could keep going.”

Walter felt all the blood draining to his feet; he was trying not to fall over. A wave of nausea washed through him, and then he was crying.

“When I finally got a good kick to one of em right in the nuts, they took turns putting out their cigarettes on my junk.  I guess I’m lucky they didn’t cut it off.”

“So I ask you, partner, what the fuck? What the hell did I ever do to you, Walter fucking White, other than flunk your class?”

Jesse stood over his former teacher, panting, tears running down his face.

“What do you have to say now, Heisenberg?”

Walter was weeping now, face buried in his hands, sobbing as quietly as he could, which was not very.

“Nothing, I have nothing…” his words were garbled with tears and snot. He sobbed, waiting for some blow, for a shot to the head, for something, no for nothing, praying for nothingness to claim him. 

**Author's Note:**

> I know, that's a difficult place to end. There's more coming, please stay tuned.


End file.
